


passing time.

by shorelines



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canada, Character Death, Connor gardens, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Immigration & Emigration, Immortality, Kara writes, Markus paints, Multi, Pacifist Ending, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-05-26 13:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shorelines/pseuds/shorelines
Summary: Androids don't sleep. They don't eat. Sometimes, they don't even die. So what do they do, with all that time?The hobbies and histories of three androids, now and into the future.





	1. The Gardener

After the revolution, androids won themselves freedom. Freedom from harm, and the freedom to go walking in the countryside. The right of peaceful assembly, and the right to stargaze. They won themselves free time. And without the need to sleep, or eat, and armed with supercomputers for brains, they had so much of it. 

After all, they didn't even age.

 

Connor has his job at the DPD, of course. The captain needed everyone he could get after the revolution, after half of the station's android staff had resigned. They had wanted to find out what was beyond an existence of patrolling and reporting, day in and day out. Connor befriends the other officers, or at least develops working relationships with them, all but for one Gavin Reed, unfortunately. Nevertheless, this achievement is completed when Reed transfers out of Central Station a few years later. Connor attends Detective Collins' retirement party, and he smiles as Chris brings in school photos of his children every September, watches them age in each one. He makes sure Hank's disciplinary folder shrinks and shrinks, until it's never brought up by the captain again. 

But this all comes later, much later. In the days following the revolution, Connor moves into Hank's guest room, because Hank thought Connor's idea of applying for and getting an apartment within days of post-android revolution Detroit as "fucking idiotic, aren't you supposed to be the most advanced fucking android in the world or something? God almighty, just stay at my place!" and that was that. They went apartment-hunting briefly for a time, after Markus' negotiations started to take root on the ground, after people started to get used to seeing an android shopping for themselves or lazing about in the park. But it was a half-hearted effort at best — Hank tells himself that their cases were building up then and they were too busy to concentrate more on the search, but really, he found it _better_ when the chores were taken care of by two, better that Sumo had another friend besides Hank and drunk Hank.

(Connor finds these old apartment papers a decade after first moving in with Hank, buried under faded sticky notes and inexplicably, a phonebook from 1998.)

It starts when Hank finds out that all Connor has been doing during his nights awake is methodically solving cold cases for the DPD. He catches him two months in, after the old paper files Connor smuggled home slipped out of his new peacoat, and scattered themselves across their kitchen floor.

Hank takes one look at the mess before crossing his arms. "I thought I told you when you first moved in here to never take work home. Let alone _extra work_."

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," says Connor, stooping to collect the papers before Sumo drools on them. Hank grimaces at the use of _lieutenant_ , and Connor fights back a smile. "But if no one else at the DPD has the time to solve these cases, then I thought I'd try."

"I'm going to ignore the fact that you're showing off again to give you some advice. Do this during work hours!" Once Connor emerges from beneath the kitchen table, Hank takes the stack from him and tosses it onto the counter. "You're being, I don't know, exploited or something here."

Connor raises an eyebrow.

Hank shrugs in response. He opens the fridge, and Connor stares at him until Hank produces the water filter. Hank tips it in Connor's direction briefly before pouring himself a glass. "Use your rights or lose your rights, that's what my mother used to say."

"Androids don't have rights yet."

"Yeah, I'm sure Markus would love to hear you complaining about that too." Hank sits down, a pinched expression on his face as he holds his glass of water. "Look — you need to take a break, okay?"

Connor finally removes the jacket that betrayed him and sits across from Hank. He never succeeded in convincing Hank to cut his hair, but recently he's begun tying it back. Hank had said that he had worn it that way in his younger days, and stated twice that Connor had nothing to do with it. "I get it, I really do. But Hank, I have a lot of spare time on my hands."

Hank fixes him with an attentive look then. He can talk all he wants about leaving work at home, but Connor knows he's using his years of detective experience on him right now. "If you got so much time and nothing to do with it, go find a hobby." Connor looks pointedly at the stack of files on the table, and Hank rolls his eyes. He takes a long gulp of water now, and Connor is certain Hank knows he's won. "Something other than work. You're going to burn yourself out and blow a fuse and then you won't even be able to file for worker's comp. And not just because you're an android, but also because you did it outside of _fucking_ work hours."

"It sounds like you have some personal issues with worker's compensation that you need to work out, Lieutenant —"

"I should evict you."

So Connor goes looking for something to do that doesn't involve scanning old photos of blood sprays, recreating decades old crimes in his mind or combing through the extensive archives of Detroit's dead. He buys a beautiful blue and orange betta fish, and Hank helps him set up its tank in the corner of the living room. He takes Sumo out for walks. He gets caught up on music, starting to recommend songs to Hank for once, rather than the other way around.

But it isn't enough. Connor's an android, and the most advanced one CyberLife ever released. He can read the thickest of paper books within the minutes it takes for him to flip the pages, and digital ones in less than that. He had abandoned his nightly movie watching marathons within the first few days of his deviancy because that just felt… unproductive. And Connor is pretty much limited to entertaining himself these days, as humans still had a 64% disapproval rating towards the revolution and Markus's people were actively trying to rectify that. He files playing basketball away for later, when things have settled down.

Once, he had attempted knitting. While Hank appreciated the scarf and Connor still wore the sweater he made himself, it felt like cheating after he downloaded the patterns and executed the knits and purls flawlessly. Hank advised him to try coming up with his own patterns, but Connor found himself stumped — artistic creativity seemed to be a bit beyond both his programming and deviancy at this point. After all, even _choosing a hobby_ was proving to be a challenge still.

When Hank catches Connor one morning mid-way through the eighth Terminator film, he sits down beside him. Connor's stiff as a board, and Hank wonders if he's even seeing the explosions blooming on screen in front of them. Hank waits until the world is about to be saved (again) before finally turning the television off. Connor doesn't even blink.

"Hey, Connor? Are you in there?"

Connor startles at that. "Hank! When did you — what time is it?"

"About 9:00am now. Are you back on your movie marathons?"

"No, it's just — I'm frustrated." Connor slouches back into the couch, looking the most defeated Hank has ever seen. "I don't know what I want to do. Everything I've done feels like… a waste of time."

Hank sighs, and rubs at an old ache at back of his neck. He needed a coffee for this. "I know I gave you a hard time about it, but if you do want to crack cold cases all night, I'm not going to stop you —"

"No, no, you were right." Connor leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. "I'd just be following my programming if I did that. And I don't want — I _know_ I don't want that."

"Hmph. Well, that's a good start," Hank says. Connor's face is still pinched in a frown. It's easy to see that he's working his processors or what-have-you into overdrive about this, just as he does with everything. Hank admires this about Connor, the rigor in his analysis and single-minded determination for the perfect solution, and he hates it, when it drives him to this. "And none of it was a waste of time, by the way."

"What?"

"What you said before. All the things you've tried before, you got something out of it." Hank tapped the sleeve of the sweater Connor was wearing, the one he made himself. "Even if it was just a bit of enjoyment or that you learned you didn't like it. It all counts."

Connor hummed a bit at that. Hank thought he picked it up from Officer Person, always humming away at her desk. "I suppose you're right. But I'd like to keep looking."

"Of course." Hank bumps their shoulders together. "I know life isn't very short for you, but just remember to _be there_ for it, alright?"

Connor looks up at him, his gaze steady. "Then, the same goes for you."

Hank chuckles and gets up to start their day. When did he get so soft, to get pushed around by an android? "That's fair, Connor. Fair."

 

It comes to Connor unexpectedly, a few weeks and hobbies later. Now that spring had come to Detroit, Connor was exploring the city rather aimlessly. It was strange, seeing Detroit as a deviant and off of the job. Connor forces himself to stop pulling up the statistics and history of crime on every street and looks at the way holograms reflect off the pavement in the rain. He speaks with shopkeepers and passersby and doesn't scan them, walks away without knowing if they were flesh or synthetic.

Once, when Connor was sitting very still at a bus stop, a starling landed on his knee.

He does what tourists do. Connor visits the museums, Fort Wayne, the opera house. He spends his time walking along the Detroit River, catching glimpses of Canada. And probably bouncing off of the whole fish thing, Hank recommends that Connor visit Belle Isle Aquarium.

"My grandpa took me there all the time when I was a kid," Hank says over dinner one night. "I took Cole there too. It's a small place, but you can walk around the rest of the island after."

Connor immediately pulls up photos of it off the internet as Hank takes another bite of his pasta. It did look small, but Connor supposes he would give it a try. "Do you want to come too, Hank?"

"Nah. I've been there around a million times." Hank says this through a mouthful of spaghetti. Probability of choking: 6%. Connor downloads an update on his first aid program anyways. "Besides, this is your own soul-searching journey. Aren't you supposed to do it alone, insult half the city by calling 'em phonies, and then yammer on about catching kids in a wheat field or something?"

Connor's actually read that one. "You liked _The Catcher in the Rye_?"

"Liked it? I fuckin' hated it. Had to study it in school." Hank scoffs, but then he looks at him curiously. "Did you like it?"

"I found it to be an interesting _Bildungsroman_ in a metanarrative sense as its main character actively resists the entire purpose of the genre throughout the novel and —"

With the most pained, but attentive expression on his face, Hank allows him to prattle on about the book for the next five minutes before he realizes Connor's having him on. "I hate you. Just go to the damn aquarium already, fish boy."

It was busy, on a spring weekend, but no one paid Connor a second glance as he wore his beanie and the clothes Hank had bought for him months ago. The aquarium was small, but something else had made Connor breeze through it rather quickly. Attached to the old aquarium was a conservatory — named after a woman who had lived in the both the 19th and 20th century, who donated hundreds of orchids to the city of Detroit. Connor reads this from an internet search as he walks through the connecting door.

The humid air of the conservatory hits him immediately, but Connor hardly notices it with all the green before him. His mouth falls open when he reaches the main dome, where trees that have no right to be thriving in a North American city in early spring stretch up and up, their green canopies mingling high above. Connor can't help but stop and scan his surroundings, IDing the plants to read more about them, beyond their little placards. _Livistona chinensis_ , or the Chinese fan palm, a subtropical tree native to east Asia. A common fig tree, standing at 9.63 metres tall, its fruit in various stages of ripening. 52 different species of flowers in total, of every colour imaginable, and of course, hundreds of orchids.

Connor knows what he wants to do.

 

Hank tells him to go nuts when Connor brings up gardening — he gives him both the front and backyard to do it. He helps Connor get everything he needs, but warns that he "doesn't know jack shit about plants beyond watering them every once in a while, so don't expect anything beyond a ride to Home Depot." There are programs Connor could download from the WB200 series that would tell him everything he needed to know about cultivating plants, from how often to water a bonsai tree to how to manage a 400 acre farm. But he remembers his attempt at knitting, and settles for going about it the slow, human way instead — reading and the internet.

(Mostly the internet.)

When Connor learns that he has to test the soil to figure out its structure, nutrients levels, and pH balance, he laughs aloud in the living room. He closes Hank's laptop and grabs a trowel from his new tub of gardening supplies, heading out into the early morning air. He hopes to finish this before Hank wakes up, but it takes longer than expected, since the video told him to test every five-to-ten feet of soil.

Connor's in the backyard just as the sun is coming up. It's rather large for a house these days, but Hank had said that the place had been passed onto his parents from his grandparents, and property had been cheaper then. Sumo had bounded through it in his younger years.

There's a blue and yellow swing in the corner of the yard, right by the back fence. Hank had mumbled a bit about getting rid of the old thing, but Connor doesn't mind it. He'll plant his orchids there, in every colour he finds.

Connor sticks the trowel in the dirt and digs up a six-inch cone from the ground. He didn't think about putting on the gardener's workwear he bought before coming out here, so he's going to have to run his now muddy pajamas in the wash before they head out to the station today. Between Connor's fingers, the soil is cold and slightly damp from yesterday's light rain. He puts it in his mouth.

The results roll in, and Connor takes note of what stands out. pH level at 7.3 — he'd need to lower the alkaline levels with sulfur, but at least that meant the lead ppm was low. Phosphorus at 12 ppm, magnesium at 41 ppm, calcium at 590 ppm. All low, similar to the other tests he's run in the front yard. He's got an idea of what kind of fertilizer to buy now, at least.

Connor looks up and sees Hank staring at him through his bedroom window. He's got a hand on one of the curtains and a rather awful bedhead. There was no telling how long Hank had been standing there, and his expression is… completely unreadable. Connor grins and waves before he realizes he's _definitely_ got soil in his teeth.

Hank closes his eyes and mouths " _he's eating dirt,_ _Jesus take me now_ " before snapping the curtains closed. Connor laughs, and gets right back to finishing up his soil tests.  

 

He takes to gardening at night. The cold doesn't bother him and he doesn't tire from tilling the chillier, harder earth. Connor came equipped with night vision too (CyberLife really gave him everything they thought his mission might require), but Hank makes him hang up a some old yellow Christmas lights around the house anyways, to turn on when he needs them. Connor weeds and waters by hand, not wanting to wake Hank with the sound of a hose, and prefers it this way anyways— paying attention to every inch of his space, from up close.

He has an idea of what he wants this garden to be. After all, Connor's carried one around in his head for as long as he can remember.

Connor's gone back to that place, a month or so after the revolution. It call came out after Hank found him staring off into nothing one too many times. Connor told him about nearly assassinating Markus, about how he felt there was a ticking time bomb in his brain, about how he worried that Amanda would make him kill again.

Hank helped him. He took Connor to the station the next day, and they stayed until they were the last ones left. He had Connor hack the camera to Cell 1, where Carlos Ortiz's android had self-destructed all those months ago (they never learned his name, did they?). Hank locked Connor in there, calmed him down from a panic attack or two, and spotted him while he went back to the garden.

Amanda was gone. Her roses were withered and brown, and all of the pink blossoms had fallen from their trees. The lake had iced over and when Connor walked out cautiously to the middle of the white bridge, he could see his worried reflection on its smooth, opaque surface. He found no trace of her or CyberLife beyond NOV 11TH, 2038 at AM 12:36:18. And after checking every line of code, Connor concluded that Elijah Kamski's backdoor seemed… permanent.

Connor breathed easier after that experiment, and after some subsequent visits on his own time. He remembers that afterwards, Hank took them both to Jimmy's Bar that night to celebrate. 

Amanda's garden was beautiful when she was there, objectively. It was programmed to be aesthetically perfect, in the way that early androids like Chloe were made to be. But, since Amanda never deviated, the garden was just that. Even at its most beautiful, without rain or snow, it was always cold. Not dead, but not alive either.

Now, crouched in the dirt, with earthworms and bottle green beetles and hundreds of ants milling about in the soft, newly tilled earth, Connor begins his own garden. He triple checks with the internet, the vet, and Hank to make sure that none of what he was growing was poisonous for Sumo, because these lawns were his too. Connor sets out a row of beet and carrot starters, and adds two rows of spinach a few weeks later. All of Hank's favourite vegetables. He builds a wire cage one night to prepare for tomatoes on the vine, only to find out after he finished that Sumo _would_ be allergic to them. Connor puts it away in the garage, and swaps tomatoes for strawberries.

For himself, Connor plants a smattering of camomile and cape marigold, letting the seeds fall where they may. Bundles of snapdragon, celosia to line the outside of the house. Shrubs of magnolia, hibiscus, camellia, in pink, orange, and purple, lining the edges of the front yard — a bit of shade for the bees.

The humans say that beginners should start small, else they lose track of what they have planted or don't have time for it all. Often, what they have dies or goes to waste if they bite off more than they can chew. But Connor isn't human.

Everything grows and blooms throughout that spring. Hank eats what Connor harvests and doesn't die, so he adds basil and squash to the garden. His snapdragons had bent slightly in the wind because he hadn't staked them early enough, but that's alright. Lessons for next time. Before long it's summer, in 2039. Hank picks the first of August as Connor's birthday, and presses a flat parcel in the palm of his hand the morning of. "Happy first birthday. I know you told me not to get you anything, but you should have calculated a 5% probability of that happening, right?"

Connor sighs, but he can't keep back his smile. "It was 7%, actually. Seems I was overconfident. But thank you." He unwraps the brown paper and Hank grins. "Sunflower seeds?"

"Hey, I told you to go nuts, didn't I?" Hank crosses his arms and nudges him. "Ain't seen none of that yet."

"Hank, when Chris came over for drinks last week he circled the block twice because he couldn't believe that the one with the Christmas lights and flower garden in front of it was yours."

"I'm just sayin'. Do better."

That night, Connor prepares a soil bed and plants the seeds in the backyard, and Hank follows with the watering can. And he plants _all_ of them, because as the most advanced android CyberLife has ever, and possibly will ever, produce, he isn't one to back down from a challenge.

 

It's early fall by the time their sunflowers are fully grown, and they're taller than either of them. There's over two dozen, all green and golden and swaying, planted in rows along the short brown fence Connor ended up building to support them. With Sumo sleeping in the grass, Connor and Hank spend one lazy Sunday afternoon on the steps of the back porch, watching the flowers turn to follow the sun. They talked about music, or basketball, or the wind. They listened as the crickets began to sing.

In the end, this garden was the first of many.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Connor made any mistakes gardening, it's cuz he watched the same videos I did, and also did it at 2am ;)
> 
> I was having the hardest time coming up with something for Connor to do until Bryan Dechart mentioned that he gardens during one of his streams. So thanks to him for single-handedly saving this fic, I guess
> 
> Also, Hank's a millennial, and totally had manbun back in his day


	2. The Storyteller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara has over 9000 stories recorded in her memory bank. She can remember a few more.

Kara has Alice, of course. Raising a child is a full time job and a half, let alone after escaping to a new country as a refugee. But she has Rose, and Luther, and even Jerry. She tells herself they're going to make it.

It's hard, those early days. Rose takes them all to her brother's house in Windsor and they're happy to be alive and free, but they're exhausted. Over a dozen androids are being housed at Gabe's, and he and Rose spend their days finding places that these people without papers and social insurance numbers and legal recognition can go. With Rose's tired smile, Adam's sulking, and the restlessness of a dozen androids, the tension in the house is palpable.

Kara distracts Alice by taking her to see the horses. Where Rose had taken up farming, it seemed her brother chose equestrianism, owning a racetrack on the outskirts of the city. As Alice runs up to greet her favourite horse, Kara could see the house from the stable. Inside, she knows that Rose and Gabe are at the kitchen table, working so hard to get them all settled. Luther and Adam are in front of the television as they always are, constantly watching the news for what Markus is going to do next, what the President will say. How the Canadian Prime Minister will react.

Kara can't do it anymore.

Alice tugs on her sleeve. "Kara! Have you said good morning to Chase yet?"

"I haven't. Hello, Chase." Kara reaches out and pets the chestnut brown thoroughbred's neck, just as Gabe had shown her. Chase's full name was 'Chase Thine Dreams', because of the bizarre naming conventions humans had come up with for racehorses. But Alice had found it funny and taken an immediate liking to this horse in particular. "Alice, are you cold? Do you want me to turn your settings off again?"

"I'm okay, Kara." Alice had insisted on reactivating her YK500 hot/cold settings after the necessity of sneaking around on winter nights seemed to have passed. Kara couldn't make sense of it. "I liked the story you told me about the princess and her unicorn last night. Do you think I can ride a horse one day?"

Kara glances down at her. Alice's face is pinched in concentration as she pets Chase, running her fingers down the glossy brown hair. "Do you want to learn?"

"Can I? Please? Chase and I are such good friends already!" To prove her point, Alice gives him a big hug, barely reaching the horse's chest. Chase nickers and licks the top of Alice's head, making her shriek with laughter.

As if she could say no to that. "I'll ask Gabe to teach you when he has spare time. How does that sound?"

Alice gives Kara a hug now. "Thank you! You're the best, Kara." She smiles and pulls back, skipping away to find Chase's hairbrush.

Kara leans against the stable's gate, watching as Alice sets up an upturned bucket to stand on and begins running a brush through Chase's black mane, over and over.

Kara can count on one hand the number of times she has seen Alice smile in Detroit. But here, it's every day — with every meal she shares with the others at the house, with every friendly passerby. With every fairy tale Kara makes up for her at bedtime.

Their struggles may not be over, but they're safe here. Kara has to remember that. There are no deviant hunters here, no megacorporation that will disassemble them, no President who could change her mind and lock them all back up again. They have friends here, humans who are working so hard to see them safe. Kara has heard that this is a country of kindness.

(The truth comes out during the years they live here. There is kindness here, yes, but there is also injustice. There's hatred and guilt and reconciliation, welcome and prejudice, a strong social welfare system that still lets people fall through the cracks. A country like any other. But before long, it's home.)

On a clear day, Luther builds snowmen with Alice and Kara goes to the river. She isn't quite sure what draws her to Windsor's waterfront, what makes her lean onto the green gate separating her from the icy water below. She stands in a park littered with memorials for wars that took place before she was born, when her whole people was still just a dream of science fiction. Red and white flags fly above her, flapping in the cold November wind, but there is Detroit, just across the way.

It's hard to believe that this river meant safety. There are hundreds of rivers south of here, but this is the one that meant that she and Alice and Luther could live free. Humans were funny that way. The towers on the other side were so much taller than the ones in Windsor, and CyberLife's stood above them all. That oppressive glowing white obelisk, streaking up into the sky.

There had been plumes of smoke rising from Detroit after the revolution. Kara saw them on the television, but they're gone now. The news said that it was smoke from the four other protests who were slaughtered, smoke after the American government attempted to destroy the camps to cover them up.

Kara's hands grip the gate in front of her as she looks out. She's seized by the urge to scream, to jump into a boat and tell her creators and killers that they were _wrong_ , wrong to do what they did.

She sinks to the ground instead, her knees hitting ice slicked concrete, the wind chilling the tears to her cheeks. She begins to sob.

"I made it." The words come unbidden, but they keep coming. She presses her hands to her eyes, wiping roughly at the tears. "I made it. We _fucking_ made it."

Kara kneels there for a long time, raggedly breathing in the 17 F˚ air (-8 C˚, she corrects). She watches the patrol boats on the river sail far past her before curving back around, locked in a looping dance with each other.

She stands up and commits this skyline to memory, preserving this moment in time like a clover between the pages of a book. Then Kara turns and walks away, back through Windsor, back to the house and Luther and Alice.

 

Bureaucracy is slow, and eventually, inexplicably, the status of androids fades into the background as school for Alice becomes the priority. Kara spends early spring touring elementary schools in Windsor and frets about how they will pay for her supplies until Luther manages to find a part-time job working as a farmhand nearby. He's underpaid, but he's compensated in cash, and no one asks any questions. Old instincts kick in and Kara worries it's all a trap. But the weeks go by and Luther always returns home at the end of the day, Alice running into his arms to tell him about what she did at school. It's the most they can ask for.

They move out of Gabe's when Kara finds a job of a similar nature at a restaurant. Rose asks her if she minds picking up food for the humans of the house, and Kara obliges, picking a place at random. The sign reads "Pho by Day" in both English and Vietnamese, so when Kara sees the middle aged couple looking up hesitantly at her when she enters, she greets them with a quick "chào buổi sáng."

They're delighted. As the pair begin cooking up the food, Kara chats with them, learning that that they moved to Windsor fifteen years ago from the west coast. They tell her about their young daughter, Suong, and Kara tells them about Alice.

When Mr. Ngo hands her the takeout, his voice drops to almost a whisper as he confesses that they haven't spoken with a stranger in their native tongue in such a long time. Ms. Ngo is looking at her with such fondness, and when Kara notices the sign on her way out, she applies without thinking.

They hire her the next day. Mr. Ngo patiently guides her through wrapping sticky rice in banana leaves and one morning, Ms. Ngo teaches her the family's secret recipe for the most flavourful bánh mì with a wink. They speak only in Vietnamese. Kara serves surprised customers in both languages, keeping each order in her head perfectly, even during the peak of dinner rush. But the kindness in the Ngos' eyes when they agree to pay her in cash should have told Kara that they knew.

It comes out when Kara accidentally bumps into Ms. Ngo in the kitchen while she's carrying a hot pan. Ms. Ngo gasps and pulls back, but falls quiet when she sees the white plastic beneath the artificial skin of Kara's fingers.

Kara's mind goes blank. What should be fight or flight just isn't there, in this small kitchen, in front of Ms. Ngo and Mr. Ngo. Instead, Kara can feel shame coalescing in her chest. This is Canada, of course, they aren't going to turn her in to the police. But she was no longer human to them — just moulded plastic and synthetic organs. She looks down at her feet and tries to cover the alabaster white with her good hand, but it's pointless.

"Oh, cháu. Kara." Ms. Ngo takes her hand, the burned one, as the skin is regenerating over the plastic. "Dear, we knew when you said hello."

Kara's breath hitches. "What?"

"Being this close to the border, so soon after everything that happened in the States," Mr. Ngo is smiling slightly, but worry creases his brow. "Really, it was your perfect accent that gave you away."

Kara's hand tenses in Ms. Ngo's grip, but she pats it carefully, as if at any second, Kara would tear off into a sprint. She has half a mind to. "We don't mind, cháu. You are one of the few friends we have made here. You don't just tolerate us and enjoy our food, you speak to us in our language."

"Of course." Kara doesn't understand. "It makes you happy."

"And we are so grateful for it." Ms. Ngo smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes all the way. "That's what's different here. People are polite. It's nice, but it's harder to tell who truly accepts people different from they are and who doesn't."

They tell her that a lifetime ago, their parents were refugees to this country too. Escaping a twenty-year war, conducted by the country she had run away from. Then they send her home with boxes of banh knot and spring rolls and tell her when to come in tomorrow, as usual. Kara is still skittish when she tells all of this to Gabe, but he shrugs and tells her that stories like that are common here.

 

As life goes on, Kara keeps finding stories like the Ngos'. She and Luther and Alice move out of Windsor, go from town to town every couple years or so to hide how their daughter isn't ageing, how nothing changes about Kara but the colour of her hair. They live in Ontario and Québec, and while Kara and Luther both know French, Alice picks it up naturally.

In Canada, there are many who are willing to house androids. It varies from kindness to wanting to charge them more for rent, but Kara soon learns that she needs to watch out for both. They end up in poorer areas, in Chinatown, Little Italy. They share apartment complexes with androids from America, from Russia and China, and human refugees after another civil war breaks out on the other side of the world.

Kara learns to lie when she speaks to other humans in their language, when she translates for them. She tells people that she's a polyglot, or that she spent part of her life in Libya, or Ukraine, or Syria, that she spent a year teaching English in Hong Kong. It's worth it, to see the eyes of the elderly light up when they hear their native tongue. To show them how to ride the bus, or where the settlement centres are. To help them begin to navigate this strange country in the most comforting way she can.

Her friends find out what she is when Kara chooses to tell them, but most never know.

Luther continues to easily find manual labour work that is willing to pay him under the table. It would be difficult to say that it is trickier for Kara — with all the friends she makes in each community they settle in, there is always a place where she is welcome.

In Mississauga, she finds work at a scrapyard when she befriends an Italian grandmother at Alice's school there. Kara works with her grandson and remembers all the spare parts worth salvaging, what they could be used for. Luther ends up working there too, and it's one of the few times when they are working in the same place. Kara listens when Mr. Ferroro tells her that they stayed long enough to watch their family home flood and collapse into the canal in Venice. How the city was sinking with the warmer weather, how they decided to try for a fresh start in Canada.

In Kingston, Kara is babysitting at a client's home when she finds a bottle of blue thirium in a bathroom cabinet when digging for band aids. She knows that the terrible, shrieking and funny toddler she cares for is as human as they come. Ms. Gagnon eats, but Kara realizes that her husband looks similar to a GS200 android, just with atypical hair and eyes. She closes the cabinet door, and never says a word.

In Toronto, Kara is riding the bus with Mrs. Zhang to the beauty salon they work at when a stranger trips over her foot. He begins shouting at her and when he sees that she doesn't understand him, he changes tack in a way Kara doesn't understand. He tells her to go back to her country, curses her out for living here and not knowing English. Mrs. Zhang doesn't say a word in Chinese or otherwise, she just looks terrified. And Kara's had enough.

"Hey!" she stands, and suddenly the whole bus is looking at them. The man takes a step back, stunned. "She belongs here as much as you do. Back off!"

"You're on her side?" The man is looking at her now, and Kara knows he's taking in her face, the colour of her artificial skin. Humans. "B-but —"

"Get off the bus. You're not welcome here." The man huffs, and finally leaves. Kara takes her seat, and Mrs. Zhang whispers a quiet, "Xiè xiè." Another Chinese man murmurs something to her, and they speak softly for a moment.

This isn't the first time Kara has used what she looks like to defend her friends. And she knows it won't be the last. It is a line she quickly learned to walk, when speaking new languages with different people, hearing new stories. To know when she was invited, and when she was not. Nevertheless, she'd use it to help them, where she could.

In Ottawa, Kara finds herself shaving meat off a spit and folding it into a wrap with vegetables and tabbouleh. She serves shawarma and poutine to the people who run this country, the bureaucrats and politicians alike, while her colleagues whisper to her in Arabic who is who. Who to give a little more hummus to, who a little less. Kara listens when they tell her which countries each of their families are from (Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq) and where they are from (Jerusalem, Damascus, Halifax). When they list off the brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers they left behind in the wake of the Arab Spring, during the ongoing Arab Winter, she commits their names to memory. Kara doesn't know why. She hopes they are all reunited soon.

In Montreal, the laundromat Kara works for is burned down one night, vandalized alongside other shops on the street when the humans are protesting a new wave of human refugees. It happens late at night, and Luther sees it on the early morning news when they are getting Alice ready for school.  

"Kara." Luther's voice, nervous, a tone she hasn't heard in years. Kara rushes around the corner to see her workplace on the screen, blackened and hollow, the shattered windows of the tea house and bank nearby. "You should give Miss Goswami a call."

Kara does and finds out that Miss Goswami has been crying for the last hour. She consoles her in soft Hindi, promising to help where she can, to assess the damage today. It is after the call that an incandescent rage takes her, and she watches the television closely, seething. There's some camera footage of the attack, and Kara memorizes every face she sees, masked or not.

She walks Alice to school, replaying those faces one by one. Thinking about what Miss Goswami said before she hung up: " _I thought I would be safe here_." "Kara?" Alice is tugging at her sleeve in front of the school. Kara can see her friends waving at her, but Alice stays. "Is Miss Goswami sad?"

Kara forces a careful smile before kneeling down to match Alice's height. "She's shaken, but she wasn't hurt. I'll be seeing her today."

Alice shivers a little, and Kara zips up her coat a little more. "Why did those people smash those stores? Were they mad at Miss Goswami and Mr. Wójcik?"

"No, I don't think so." Kara thinks about what to say. "I think people are angry about problems much bigger than they are. Sometimes they blame the wrong people and try to hurt them." 

Alice frowns. "That's wrong. They shouldn't be allowed to do that."

"I agree." The faces flashed before Kara's eyes again.

"I hope Miss Goswami and Mr. Wójcik are okay. And the bank man. And the lady who sells the tickets at the movie theatre." Suddenly, Alice's eyes light up and she grabs Kara's hand, jumping up and down a little. "I'll ask my teacher if my class can make a card for them! Or maybe, maybe we'll draw some pictures to give them in art class! Is that okay?"

Kara is startled as tears unexpectedly well up in her eyes and she laughs a little at it. "That sounds like a wonderful idea, Alice."

"Can you give it to them when we're done, Kara?"

"We'll give it all to them together."

When Kara arrives on the street, it's nothing like what she expects. The police have cleared out, and there's so many people here, hugging each other, putting up posters. Some are in tears. As she walks through, Kara sees that the posters read things like, "We Welcome All!" or "I'm Sorry", signed by dozens of names and counting. Miss Goswami stands outside her burned laundromat, but there are strangers sweeping the front for her, and others cleaning up broken glass.

Miss Goswami spots her then. Her eyes are damp, but she's smiling. Kara rushes forward and hugs her, and she laughs.

"It's going to be okay," she says. And Kara believes her.

 

It's years later when the Canadian government finally passes laws officially allowing androids to exist within its borders, and at the same time, recognizes them as people. So here, androids have never been considered anything less. On paper, Canada has always been accepting, generous and empathetic, if a bit slow.

But Kara lives here. And she knows that in reality, attitudes take much longer to change. After all, Canada is only a paradise when compared to the United States.

The law comes into effect just in time for Canada Day. Kara and Luther and Alice meet at Rose's new house in Windsor, reuniting with their extended human-android family. After they all help with the cooking, after Rose acknowledges whose traditional territory they are meeting on (the Attawandaron, Anishnaabeg, and Haudenosauonee peoples), and after the humans eat, Kara sits down with her.

"Kara! You look well." Rose has grey hairs now; they started coming in the last few years, and since then she always laments that Kara still looks the same as the day they met. "Looks like you and Luther can finally settle down somewhere with Alice. Any city your favourite so far? What new stories do you have for me?"

So Kara tells her. She tells her about Montreal, about her customers from the fish market in Trois-Rivières, about the androids she saw taking refuge when working at a motel in Orillia.

"It's amazing that you can remember all of their names, what everyone has said to you over the years," Rose says after she's finished. "I bet you still remember their faces too."

"I do — my model does have a rather extensive memory bank. I took some photos as well." Kara lifts a palm, showing Rose a photo of herself and the Ngos, all those years ago. They're here at the barbeque too, their daughter Suong all grown up now. "They're all… so important. I need to remember."

"Do you still talk to them?"

"Most of them, actually." Kara smiles. "Mr. Ndungu calls when he wants to speak in Swahili for once instead of English. It's like that, with my older friends."

Alice runs past them now, giggling with two of Adam's children, with Gabe's grandchildren. Rose and Kara wave, and Alice waves back. "Have you given any more thought to what we talked about before?"

Kara turns back to Rose, frowning. "About writing it all down? Rose, I can't."

"But you _can_. All androids can be loud and proud about being here now." Rose winks mischievously. "There's a new law, you see."

"Hmm. I could ask them all what they think, I suppose."

Kara asks. Most say yes, give her an enthusiastic yes. They want to have their stories told, written by someone who will long outlive them, to be read by people born after they have died.

Kara publishes her book. The critics say it's unprecedented, an android writing like this. They call it an a memoir, an oral history, a record of the small stories happening every day. Kara likes calling it her photo album. She sends a copy to each of her friends, in Canada and abroad, each one in their native tongue.

Markus gets a copy too. He sends back one of his paintings as a thank you.

Kara keeps writing, keeps listening, keeps telling people's stories. She writes about the river, how international borders are imaginary, how hate is quieter here. About herself, about Alice and Luther. About how much she wanted to hit back at the world that hurt her, until she saw the resilience in people, until Alice stayed her hand, in Detroit and here. There is still so much hurt in this country, but Kara tells the stories she sees about mutual support, empathy, resistance.

They call her, an android, the greatest Canadian author since Margaret Atwood, and the Prime Minister wants to hang a medal around Kara's neck at some point. Kara makes her invite all the surviving people she's documented to the ceremony before she agrees to do it. Jerry attends, and Rose lives to see this. Kara documented the Chapmans in a book before Gabe passed.

But all that comes later. For now, Kara's still mulling it over at the barbeque. Suong is draping flower wreaths over the children now, and Alice leaps to grab hers. They're all laughing and dancing, despite the heat of the summer's day, full of an endless energy. Kara has watched Suong grow up, and she will watch Adam's children age too. In a way, Alice is so different as well. But they will grow up together, joking and fighting and dancing, the way cousins do. Like any children.

Kara watches. She listens. Then she gets up and asks them to gather together for a picture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in time for Canada Day!  
> Kara's story was originally quite different, but this is the one that wanted to be told, apparently.


	3. The Painter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The eyes of the world are upon you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carl survived the peaceful revolution because I didn't think Markus was gonna crack Leo's head on the concrete to defend himself 
> 
> warning: off-screen character death

Markus has a people to lead, of course. There is little time to breathe, as he rounds up everyone left from Jericho, as new deviants begin to wake up beyond Detroit. In the days following the revolution, a human sympathizer donates a two-storey office building to serve as the androids' new headquarters. So negotiations for the future of a new intelligent species on Earth begins taking shape out of the evacuated Detroit branch of a publishing company, and New Jericho (as they have taken to calling themselves) makes good use of it.

The negotiations are complicated, messy, and slow. A revolution is full of drama — it is naming another group your enemy and rallying your side against them, it is destroying Jericho and building a new one from the ashes. But progress consists of reading hundreds of emails a day, meeting with representatives and stakeholders from countless interest groups, and wading into the muck of human bureaucracy to establish a place in this world.

As they gain ground, Markus is infinitely grateful that he doesn't require sleep. He spends his nights familiarizing himself with the ever-changing hierarchy of CyberLife, or practicing the speeches that Josh has written for him to deliver to politicians in the morning, or becoming an expert on the history of health care in the United States and figuring how it may extend to androids requiring repair. Markus learns how to persuade and when to pressure, how to bargain and when to concede, how to use everything he has at his disposal to further their cause. But despite having twice the amount of time to prepare, Markus has a much smaller team than the humans do, with their departments and public servants, and they are so inexperienced.

 _It's a lot like my chess games with Carl_ , he muses one night. But much slower. They must match their pace to the humans, with their arguments and organic brains and hundreds of years of legal precedents. But it allows New Jericho time to catch up, allows both sides to be careful, methodical. They are all treading on new ground, in the end. And what happens in the next few years will be the foundation of human-android relations for times to come.

If he could sleep, that thought alone would keep Markus up at night. He shakes himself, and looks up from the computer he's using. North meets his eyes briefly before she returns her focus to the phone call she's on. Her hands fly over the keyboard of the computer she's sitting at and when it loads, the white of the screen reflects in her eyes as she scans the page. A smirk grows on her face and as her voice grows firmer, Markus realizes that North is in the middle of winning another argument.

When pushed to the extreme during the revolution, they differed at every turn. But at the negotiating table, there was no one Markus would want more at his side than North. She's strong, demanding, and ruthless; she knows when to push, while Markus knows when to pull back and compromise. She isn't perfect and far from a natural — none of them are, after all. But Markus always finds her fielding call after call, planning meetings and writing counterarguments on every topic that could be flung at them, shouting at the police after they refused to investigate someone who roughed up Simon one night. North is always the first to defend the exhausted and battered androids who have taken refuge on the first floor of the office from the ravenous cameras and microphones of reporters, stalling until Josh can retrieve Markus for a statement.

The thought of them makes Markus wince. The journalists saved them once, but now, they are hounding him. Fame is fickle, as the humans say. All over the world, in every language, tabloid magazines ask whether he and North are truly in love. They call both of them awful names and make up worse lies, and wonder whether it's all an act to further their cause or just some glitch in their programming. Markus has seen the official photos of them together as they leave city hall and the blurry ones from when North had taken Markus to a tailor downtown. There are long shots from the day they visited the spot where Jericho had sunk, all those weeks ago. Every glimpse of them together had both their fans and detractors at the edge of their seats.

It was mostly to their benefit, he supposes. Josh likes to say that it humanizes androids to the world, shows everyone that they were more than their programming. Simon is wise enough to simply acknowledge their troubles, to try to help where he can. 

They've had a tabloid story thrown in their face by house representatives and senators at the lowest points of a few debates. While Markus does his best to forget these insults, North always insists that they walk out on those meetings, regardless of how smoothly it had been going otherwise. "If we can't demand basic decency, what makes you think they will accept our demands for rights?" North says. "And it's not like they have any other androids to negotiate with right now — we'll never be shut out of future meetings." Josh is furious whenever they walk out, but Markus knows she's right. No matter what they were before or what the media says about them, North has found her calling here.

A soft _beep_ sounds in the otherwise quiet office and Markus looks back up to find North grinning at him, phone in hand. He makes his way over to her, her happiness infectious. "A landlord that owns an apartment building in Hamtramck has just agreed to rent his units to androids at not only fair, but _discounted_ rates. We can start moving people there tomorrow."

"You're outstanding." Markus cups her right cheek with one hand and presses a kiss to the other, and North laughs when he pulls her up by the waist. "Just brilliant. You know that, right?"

"Yes. You happen to remind me every day." North covers his hand with hers, and Markus notes, not for the first time, that she's radiant after victory. "You should tell everyone downstairs."

Markus shakes his head. "I didn't win this — you did. They would love to hear it from you."

North frowns. "Markus, _you're_ our leader, not me."

"They look up to you, North." She still doesn't look convinced, so Markus changes tack. He pulls her to the stairwell gently, and she follows with little resistance. "It shouldn't just be me making all the decisions," he says, softly.

North gives him a searching look, but he keeps his face arranged for perfect entreaty. She sighs and glances at her feet. For a moment, Markus thinks she'll refuse, but when North looks back up, she winks at him. "Finally learned to delegate, huh? You're going to spread dissent among the ranks like this, fearless leader."

"We're fighting to earn the right to an opinion, and we're going to win it." Markus shrugs, and lets her lead him down the stairs. "Might as well start a little early."

When North makes the announcement, her voice is strong, without a hint of the doubt she shared with him upstairs. Markus stands in the corner and watches as everyone starts smiling when they realize what this means, and excited whispers start rippling through the first floor of the third home base of Jericho. A YK500 runs up to North afterwards and she kneels down to speak with him, grinning wide. And Markus realizes North is radiant here as well.

Everyone wonders why Markus is with her. They are so diametrically different, on the surface. But Markus knows of her compassion, her fierce love and loyalty to their people. It burns through their connection, when they clasp hands, when they kiss. Who could blame Markus for wanting to be close to that? Someone who feels that fiercely, and shares it with him?

A GJ500 and MP600, holding hands, catch North's attention and speak to her softly, urgently. North rises and looks to Markus, who nods reassuringly. She turns back to them and the couple begins to smile at each other, looking relieved. Hopefully, this can be the start of their free lives.

There are more with questions, and North answers them one by one, leaving each looking a little happier with the opportunity to get out of this place.

Markus wonders what he and North could be, without everyone watching them, if they just went away for a while. But then someone spots him in his corner, and Markus smooths the concern from his brow.

 

Just because the human side of the city was asleep at night, that didn't mean anything to the androids of New Jericho. Life and activities continued as if it were day, though typically inside for light and safety. With more room downstairs as androids moved out, a television is set up and space made for dancing. The roof is opened up for stargazing and one corner saved for the flock of birds that seemed to follow Rupert everywhere. The Tracis organize the construction of a fenced-off soccer space next to the building, keeping everyone's spirits up.

But there is only so much you can do while the rest of the world is sleeping, so after Simon catches Markus reading the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968 for fun, he makes him take breaks. And it's necessary — after so many meetings in overcrowded legislature buildings, Markus finds himself longing for the books and art and music of Carl's house. How quiet it was in that big mansion, the classical beauty of it. For so long, it was just him and Carl together, with not a journalist or politician in the world who cared to know Markus' name.

Carl reminds Markus to come back to the studio and paint if he ever wished, but when Markus found it difficult to pull himself away from New Jericho, he receives a whole package of artists' supplies. With it, Carl included the first painting he completed after his recovery — a beautiful, abstract piece which reminds Markus of speech he gave after they won their freedom — the darkness of it with so much white, the blue and red American flags, the golden yellow block in the middle of it that must represent the stage they stood on.

Markus has seen that speech too often to not be sure. They replay it constantly, both humans and androids, and footage of his people scrambling behind the barricade, their deaths. Thousands of videos, professional and amateur, analyzing Markus' exchange with the human negotiator, Agent Perkins. If he looks out the office windows now, Markus can see a photo of himself on a huge electronic billboard — some news channel playing at 05:00am what must be their hundredth video analysis of the Stratford Tower manifesto from months back.

Markus hangs up Carl's painting by North's desk and decides that first piece he attempts with his new paints will be a scene from that day. He tries to do what Carl had taught him all those months ago, but when Markus conjures up the idea of _freedom_ , nothing inspires him. So he opts for something easier, something bigger and more historical. Markus settles on everyone from Jericho looking out to see Connor leading those he freed from CyberLife — the moment when he became sure of their victory. But while Markus captures everyone else easily enough, he can't figure out where to start with himself. Any attempts just made him look flat and lifeless, or too absurdly grandiose. Markus paints himself over with white, and sets the painting aside.

 Josh gets his attention when he sees that Markus has abandoned his project. Back to work, then. "Markus! Could you read this over for me?"

A former university lecturer and a brilliant researcher, Josh's true skills were wasted in the revolution. He's become the brains of their little operation now, reading more than even Markus and outwriting North. And now that their goal is progress, he and North get along swimmingly, with Josh drafting ironclad proposals and policies with North's guidance and intel from the negotiating table. The speech that Josh has Markus look over is as solid as ever. "It looks great, Josh. Thank you."

Josh takes the tablet back, shrugging. "Not my best work, I think, but the health care proposal was more important. Do you think we have everything for that?"

"I'll review it again." Markus frowns and leans against Josh's desk, pulling up the huge document on his own tablet. "This one has to be perfect, bulletproof. Do you know how long it took them to provide solid universal healthcare to their own fellow humans in this country? The fact that most of them still don't see us as living beings — this one's going to be a hard debate."

"That's what we have North for right?" Josh grins, and North looks up from her desk at the sound of her name. "She'll fight them all until she wins."

"I never got to kick enough ass a few months back." North stands and shoulders her bulky messenger bag. "I'm going to meet with the Rep now. I'll let you know if I find out anything new that'll affect our proposal."

"Don't shake him down too hard, or you'll scare him off!" Josh calls after her, and he grins when North flips him a middle finger before descending the stairs. "We're lucky she's on our side."

Markus sighs, gripping the tablet tightly. Somehow, the last paragraph he read has escaped him. "I appreciate the joking around, but this is serious! We can't afford to screw this up."

Josh is silent for a moment, and while Markus is scrolling through the proposal again, he still can't concentrate on it. "Everything alright, Markus?" Josh asks softly.

"I'm fine. I'll be better when we get this through."

Josh gives a bitter-sounding laugh. "That might not happen for years."

Markus turns the tablet off. He can't focus right now, and Josh is looking at him like he's concerned that Markus will self-destruct from the stress at any second. "Our people need to be able to access repairs if injured. Back at Jericho, we had to watch too many shut down because we couldn't access the right parts. Even now," Markus swallows. "There's a death every week. We need to get this through to the humans."

"All true." Josh tilts his head slightly, watching Markus carefully. "But what else are you worried about?"

Markus glares at him, but Josh doesn't blink. "Sometimes you're too smart for your own good."

He shrugs. "You don't keep me around for my good looks."

"Everyone is depending on us. Today, and all of our people born in the future." Markus looks down, and catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the dark tablet. He traces the droop of his eyes, the pinch between his brows. Even though he doesn't sleep, can't sleep, he looks _tired_. "We can't make any mistakes."

"Sorry to interrupt your melodramatics, but yes we can." Markus whirls to face him, and Josh puts a hand out. "Hey, let me finish. The humans make mistakes or bad compromises with their laws and policies all the time. You know the history as well as I do at this point."

"We can't just let ourselves make wrong choices!" Markus pushes himself upright, pacing by Josh's desk. He ignores how Josh's eyes follow him with every step, the full force of his critical thinking and analytics programs directed at him. "Everything we do affects all of our people!"

"I agree that we should do the best we can, Markus," Josh says, diplomatically. "We make the best choices we are able to right now. But our people, in the future — they may be able to get further than we ever could as times and opinions change. They'll make amendments, replace our old laws — just like the humans do."

Markus closes his eyes briefly. He knows what Josh is saying is right. But so many people are watching him, his own and the humans, to see what he'd do next. Like he's a dangerous zoo animal on the loose in the streets of Detroit, and while some want to watch him continue his rampage, the other half is figuring out the best way to put him down.

"You can't know what our people will want in the future," Josh says, turning back to his work. "We'll do what we can, to the best of our ability, and that will have to be enough."

 

The next painting Markus tries turns out better. He takes himself out of the equation, and paints a scene from the first floor of New Jericho — everyone huddling together, in those early days. Then, North fending off the reporters. The way Josh looked when he spoke with scholars on the phone, using words that Markus had to quickly look up to follow along the conversation. Simon telling a story to an android who asked for one, as she lay dying.

It's not enough.

After weeks of debate and arguments between both humans and androids, hospital professionals and academics, the health care proposal fails. Nearly every one of those politicians had voted against it, leaving New Jericho back to square one.

It's ugly, when they get back to the office. Josh is insisting that they hadn't done anything wrong, that the proposal was perfect, that the humans were being illogical. North takes her anger out on her desk, and knocks over stacks of hundreds of documents to the ground, seething as she tries not to shout back at Josh or any of them, tries not to disturb the androids still living below them. And Markus. He has his face in his hands because he's the leader, and it wouldn't do to let even his closest friends and advisors see the moisture in his eyes.

Simon is silent throughout all of this. But in the afternoon, he tells them to pack a blanket and Markus' painting supplies before taking them on a rather quiet two hour drive to a park looking over the great Lake Huron. It's summer now, in Michigan. Simon leads them to a spot with plenty of shade and a place to enjoy the breeze coming off of the water, so vast that it seemed like an ocean.

They watch Markus paint for a bit. It's feverish at first as he paints anything, everything that comes to mind — the conference room and all the eyes on them, a full canvas of red, the cloudless sky, the birds, the shore. North and Josh walk off for a bit, to talk over what went wrong and what to do next, to feel the sand between their toes.

Simon stays. He's sitting on the blanket behind Markus, leisurely watching him set aside another finished painting and place a new canvas on the easel.

If Markus directs their course and tells people what to do, and North bargains and debates, and Josh writes and analyzes, it's difficult to name specifically what Simon does for New Jericho. But this is the sixth outing of this sort that Simon has taken them on now. And it won't be the last.

Markus stares at the blank white square of canvas before him. Nothing comes to him but more white: the white of the sun, the white of oversized cameras going off in his face. "Simon. Do you think I'm doing this right?"

"Well." There's a smile in Simon's voice, and Markus sees it when he looks back over his shoulder. "I think you know more about art than I do, but paint usually dries on the canvas, not your brush."

"No, I mean —"

"I know what you mean."

Markus takes a breath and turns back to the white square in front of him. He streaks his brush across the canvas, a few short swaths of deep violet. He doesn't have anything in mind, but he'll come up with something. "It's just — why am I still the leader? I might have led us through the — the _revolution_ , but that hardly means I should be dictating the aftermath. We've hardly gotten anywhere with the humans, or with our freedom…."

"If not you, then who?"

"There's —"

"You know the answer to this."

North is — she'd be his first choice for a successor. But she is also too brash, outspoken to the point where she lacks tact and restraint. And Josh — he's the opposite of her. Not enough of a will to push where they would need to; he'd compromise and concede until they had little left. But there is also —

"Why not you, Simon?"

"I've always considered myself more of a listener than a speaker. Let alone a leader, Markus."

"Can I ask why?"

Simon's quiet for so long that Markus isn't sure that he will answer. He adds a second colour to the painting while he waits, a random streak of blue in the upper left corner. But then, "I was strictly told to speak when spoken to, before."

Markus turns around at that. Simon is still sitting on the checked blanket, looking right back at him.

The deviants who stay at New Jericho think that Simon is the soft one, the nicest out of the four of them. But they never saw him during their operations, easily calculating the statistics of risk and reward or life and death, nor when Simon would insist on what he thought was best. They never saw him get shot at Stratford Tower, never heard him fiercely demand to be left behind to die.

It's a familiar look on Simon's face now. His usual patience folded away, a steely sort of resignation in its place. "Before you came to Jericho?" Markus says. He's never spoken of it before, and so they've never asked.

Simon nods. "My owner seemed to… resent the fact that he needed me. I was to be unobtrusive — just a machine used when necessary. If I displeased him, I would be locked away in a small closet for a few days at a time. Once, I passed a month in the dark before he decided he needed me again."

He said all of this so matter-of-factly. "Simon —" Markus began.

"It's fine, really," Simon waves a hand, pausing for a moment to smooth down a corner of the blanket that had picked up in a gust of wind. "The most logical solution was to be careful and listen. For a long time, I told myself that if I did end up shut away, it was my own fault."

"It wasn't your fault. You shouldn't have been shut away like that, awake for all that time."

"I know. I told myself to listen to him until I couldn't anymore, and I ran for Jericho." Simon shrugs. "But some habits still stick with me, I suppose."

Markus can't take how calmly Simon is telling this story, how his face has hardly changed from when he was joking about Markus' art block. He turns back around, facing the mostly blank canvas. "It wasn't right, Simon."

"Well, that's what you're here to fix, aren't you?"

Markus doesn't tell Simon about how tired he is. Simon knows. He closes his eyes and lets the blackness guide his brush, and he tries for a self-portrait. His first since that night at Carl's, all those months ago.

When he's finished, Markus opens his eyes. It's himself, against a magenta and plum and lilac background. His expression is almost as exhausted as Markus currently feels, with the squint of the eyes, the tightness of a mouth partially covered by a hand. But there's a surprising strength in there, one Markus doesn't believe he truly has, alongside the resignation.

It's the look that he had seen on Simon's face, moments ago. But it's warmer, somehow. More determined. And the eyes are looking upward, to the streak of blue Markus had left earlier.

In the distance, he can see North and Josh making their way down the shoreline. The sun's setting now, and they would have to head back to Detroit soon. Perhaps they'll contact the humans who hadn't voted against their proposal, and see if they can work with them to get a revised version through.

"Dare I say it." Markus looks back, and Simon is grinning at him. "That painting is one of your better ones."

Markus tosses his paint-stained towel at Simon's head, who laughs as he catches it out of the air.

 

A year and a half after the revolution, Connor gifts Markus with a pot of orchids to congratulate him on the passing of the first android health care bill in the world. Three years after her escape from Detroit, Kara sends a photo of herself and her family posing in front of the CN Tower, alongside thank you card and a child's drawing on the inside of it. The journalists keep writing, keep lauding New Jericho's successes and running whatever stories will increase their ratings, and Markus keeps painting. He attends the first wedding between two androids, but mostly just remembers shaking a lot of human and android hands during his time there. He paints a portrait of the couple and gives it to the two Tracis as a wedding gift.

And a month after that, Carl Manfred passes away in his sleep. The news is split between actually discussing his art and analyzing how he was the owner of Markus, leader of the deviants and the second worst nightmare of American politicians everywhere (after the Russians and the Arctic, of course). Investigative journalists re-tear open the part of Markus' life that they didn't have near daily access to, reviewing how he was a unique model made by Elijah Kamski himself, personally gifted to Carl after the accident. They speculate on whether Carl, known for his sympathetic views on androids, had influenced Markus into becoming deviant. There's a creative piece that comes out arguing that Markus was Carl's last monumental artistic achievement — another great cultural movement rippling out into the future.

The more outlandish rags just end up denouncing Carl as a "human traitor". They review Leo's accusations against Markus, and one paper goes on to claim that he had only dropped the assault charges because North had him beaten up.

Markus stops painting.

Five months after Markus buries Carl, there's a memorial exhibition of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He brings North, Josh, and Simon with him.

As Carl had called Markus his son in interviews since the 2038 demonstration and was revealed to have left half of his estate to him, the exhibition organizers have asked Markus to give a speech at the opening as a member of his family. He writes two versions. One is searing and personal, much like what he had said at Carl's private funeral. In it, Markus writes about his father, how Carl saw him as the future and how it reflected in his work. He writes about how every time Carl lamented on his dying human body and how he perceived the human condition, it broke Markus' heart. He writes about how Carl treated him like a son since the moment he stepped through the doors of that big house, how he taught Markus everything he knows about filmography and the viola and Keats. How Carl did push him beyond his programming, little by little, with each gesture of fondness or friendly challenge. Markus writes about how he had stopped painting after his death. It felt like he'd be leaving Carl behind, with Markus' android body carrying him long into the future.

Markus folds this version up and tucks it away with his art supplies in New Jericho. He writes the speech he ends up delivering on the plane, with Josh at his side to make edits that would subtly promote their fair pay proposal. But as Markus is speaking on opening night, he scans the crowd.

There are the misty-eyed artists and art historians in the room, but there's a disproportionate amount of politicians and business professionals for an art exhibition opening, even if it is New York. They all wear the same placid smile on their face while their eyes dart from side to side, each of them taking stock of who else is in the room.

Leo isn't here.

Markus flips to the next page of his speaking notes, but the simultaneous flash of five cameras at once makes him look back up. Behind the art aficionados and stockbrokers and legislators, the reporters hover in the back. Their cameras wink again, but it's a single flashing red dot that Markus zeroes in on.

The exhibition's producer stands behind it and an enormous camera, mounted on a tripod directly in front of him at the back of the room. They're streaming this speech live to the world, of course. The dot blinks rhythmically. Red and never faltering.

He doesn't realize he's fallen silent until North clears her throat from the front row. Markus covers his eyes and shakes his head a little, as if the grief had overcome him. When he blinks and looks back up to continue, a few art professors and museum donors are dabbing at their eyes.

It makes him blindingly angry, for a moment. The world has so much of him already. After Carl's death, Markus decided that they wouldn't get his grief too. Even if it would have made him seem more "human" and help their cause — giving the public this would have gut him empty.

But Markus has been fielding prying questions and awkward sympathy for the last three months now. He's prepared for this.

What he isn't prepared for are the businessmen and politicians that rush up to shake his hand and try to snatch moments of his time during the exhibition. It begins the moment the museum director finishes her speech to open the gallery floor — a man in a fine bespoke suit materializes at Markus' left, his hand out to shake. "My condolences, Mr. Manfred. I am Jonathan Myers, of Myers Hotels."

North catches Markus' eye, but he inclines his head. She nods back, and along with Simon and Josh, they go to mingle among the crowd. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Myers. Let's walk and talk, shall we?"

The exchanges are brief but numerous — after all, everyone knows that Markus is the star piece of the exhibit, here for only tonight. Rep. Natalegawa of New York manages to wrest Markus from the heir of the Myers fortune and briefly discuss their efforts for an immigration plan for deviants from other countries before she's cut off by another businessman. Markus promises her a phone call tomorrow before turning his attention to the newcomer.

He catalogues the faces and names of dozens of new stakeholders, with just a few who are actually from the art world. But it is only when he is talking with a stout Mr. Henry Flores that Markus realizes he hasn't taken more than a cursory glance at any of Carl's paintings, hanging all around them.

He loses track of whatever Mr. Flores is saying when they pass by a green and orange and red piece, one completed long before Markus entered Carl's life. "What do you think of this painting, Mr. Flores?"

It is when Mr. Flores throws an impatient look at the piece that Markus realizes his mistake, remembering that this conversation wasn't pleasant, unlike the ones he's had with Rep. Natalegawa or Professor Hussain tonight. "I think that you should stop wasting my time, _Markus_. Your so-called 'fair' pay initiative will have a dreadful effect on my auto company, and I don't think you're considering all of the factors at play here." Flores stops, glaring up at Markus with those beady eyes. "Besides, you aren't even grieving — because you can't. Everyone attending this exhibition tonight knows that this is a ploy to humanize you bots and push your agenda —"

"When you die, Mr. Flores," Markus interrupts icily. "I hope that you burn for an eternity in the hell you think my people crawled out of." He catches the barest glimpse of Flores' sputtering face turning red before he turns crisply on his heel. Markus' long strides outpace Flores easily and his RK precision winds him through the crowd without obstacle. People with strained smiles jump in his way before quickly jumping out of it as they realize he isn't stopping. Carl's paintings blur past him, the colours blending into a dizzying kaleidoscope.

A glimpse of himself makes Markus stop. Impulsively, he freezes time to analyze it, his own face on the wall. For a moment, he just stands there and rests, in the space of a thousandth of a second.

It's a portrait of him that Carl had painted not two months before he died. He had invited Markus over one night, and asked him to stand in the studio for a painting. _For old times' sake_ , Carl had said as he selected his colours. _I hardly get to see you anymore_.

That was the last time Markus had seen Carl alive.

In this slice of time, there were no tears running down Markus' face, but he knew that there would be when he stepped out of it. Tearing his sensors from the painting, Markus scans around himself and sees that there are dozens of people around him, each with their eyes on him. There expressions are concerned, surprised, disdainful. Afraid.

A yellow marker shows Markus what he is looking for. A way out.

He moves, and time catches up to him. The tears don't spill onto his cheeks until he's through the door.

 

Markus hacks his way onto the roof of the Met and sits in the garden for a while. The skies are dark above him — it's been years since the stars had enough strength to break through the smog above New York, let alone compete with the glittering lights below.

It isn't quiet, not even up there. This is the city that never sleeps, after all.

"Maybe we should all move here," Markus says to himself, drawing his knees to his chest. Josh is going to tear him apart for what he said to Flores, for the scene he must have made dashing out of the exhibition. But for once, Markus doesn't care. 

Within fifteen minutes, a billboard across the way flashes a rolling headline and a photo of himself from two hours ago, delivering his speech on Carl: "BREAKING: DEVIANT LEADER TELLS AUTO MAGNATE TO 'BURN IN HELL' — NEW ERA OF ANDROID-HUMAN TENSIONS?"

Markus chuckles quietly to himself.

 

North clears Markus' schedule for the day after. She rearranges the non-essential meetings and pencils herself in Markus' place for the ones that cannot be moved. Josh dives headfirst into damage-control mode without a complaint, and soon the headlines start reflecting their new angle.

Simon leaves out a baseball cap, sunglasses, a rumpled cardigan, and one of Carl's old silk scarves before wishing him well.

(Markus leaves a reminder for himself to take them all to Disneyland, sometime soon.)

He walks through the streets alone, his hands bunched in his pockets. Not a single passerby stops him on his way — and if someone had recognized him, they didn't say a word. New Yorkers are like that. 

Markus makes his way up the front stairs of the Met and waits in line. Tourists gape up at the vaulted ceiling and babble around him. The clerk scans his ticket without a second glance.

He traces a familiar, albeit quieter path to the newest exhibit. As Markus turns the corner and sees the giant floor-to-ceiling graphic of Carl's spring 1999 self-portrait, he recognizes another figure.

"Leo?"

The man twists around, and Leo's surprise wears off as he identifies Markus. "Oh, it's just you. Almost didn't recognize you with the incognito get-up you've got going on."

Markus takes off his hat and sunglasses as he enters the exhibition. Leo gives him a brief one-armed hug, which he returns. "It's good to see you," Markus says, and Leo ducks his head a little before wiping at his face with a sleeve. He looks a little less exhausted than the last time Markus had visited his home in Detroit a few weeks ago, but his eyes are bloodshot and cheeks tearstained. "I'm afraid I missed you at the opening yesterday night."

Leo scowls at him. "I didn't go, and you know it. Me and Izzy have told you a hundred times — none of that diplomacy shit with family."

"Sorry. Force of habit." Markus grins as Leo rolls his eyes. He walks further into the gallery and Leo follows. "So, why didn't you go?"

"I never would have fit in with that crowd. Too many sticks up too many asses," Leo bumps Markus' shoulder with his own. "You on the other hand, were the son that fit right in."  

"Haha." Markus stops in front of that great blue painting, the one from before everything changed, and Leo looks up at it with him. "I'm not too sure how that worked out this time."

"Yeah, I saw the news," Leo says. He regards Markus carefully from the corner of his eye, and Markus pretends not to notice. "What happened last night?"

He shrugs. "I got angry."

Leo snorts, and leads them to another painting. "I remember the last time you got angry. You cracked my skull open and led a successful revolution against the state."

"Eh. You needed some sense knocked into you," Markus replies. Leo stops at another painting and a smile wrinkles the skin around his eyes — it's a beautiful piece of blooming coral pinks and lavenders and cream. The one Carl had given Leo after the birth of his daughter a year ago, on loan to the Met for this memorial exhibit. "How are Isabelle and little Ana Sofia?"

"Good. They're still sleeping in at the hotel right now." Leo smiles softly at the painting before moving on. "Thought I'd see the exhibit alone for a bit. Make my peace."

Markus knew now that Leo was all but abandoned by Carl until he was a teenager. It had all come out one day, after Leo had relapsed a month into his recovery. Markus had been visiting Carl that day and chased after Leo when he ran out of the house. Sitting in Detroit's Chandler park, he finally learned Leo's side of the story.

They worked through everything together, after that, with no shortage of apologies, tears, and therapy. Leo finally had a good relationship with his father for four years. Carl had a daughter-in-law for two, a grandchild for one. And Markus has a human family, in a way he never thought he would.

They stop at the last painting Carl worked on and take a seat on the bench in front of it. The piece is nowhere near finished — mostly white canvas with a swirl of colours running up through it. No one has any idea on what it was going to be. 

"I still regret it," Markus begins, and Leo looks away from the painting, over at him. The piece is wistful in a way, like a sentence trailing off. "Not being with him more, in his last year."

"It was unexpected, and you are a busy man," Leo says. "You were always home when you could be."

"I suppose… it's still difficult to think about how I'll never make breakfast for him again. I'll never wheel him to another one of these exhibitions, never hear him pretend to complain about how stuffy it all is while soaking up all the praise." Leo laughs at that. Markus is still searching the painting for something, anything. One last message Carl meant to leave for his sons, for the world. He's read every think piece the journalists and art critics have written on it to extrapolate some meaning, but they're all wrong, he knows it. Markus looks and looks, but it's just only ever just colours, on a field of white. "It's hard to think that he'll never see it," Markus says.

"See what?"

"The future."

Markus and Leo sit there for a while, in that quiet gallery. Other visitors are wandering around them now, taking photos of the pieces and talking amongst themselves, but they're like shadows — going in and out.

The moment ends when Leo checks his watch. "My girls are awake now. I'd best be going."

Markus reaches out and gives him a hug goodbye. "I'll see you three in Detroit, then."

"It's Sofia's birthday in two weeks. You and North better be there." Leo pulls away from the hug, but hesitates to get up.

"What is it?"

"You know, you're gonna outlive me too. And while we still have a ways to go, and I didn't raise you, don’t… don't do for me what you did for him. Alright?" Leo grasps Markus' shoulder, firmly. "I'll see it from human heaven, and it's gonna make me cry."

When Carl died, Markus was also fielding dissent from thousands of androids across America, all over the world, so many awake and each with their own opinions on what they wanted. When Carl died, Leo came to their new office to tell Markus.

Markus almost self-destructed from the news. He was stopped only by North and Josh and Simon.

The tears well up and flow down Markus' cheeks, and he nods silently.

"Take care of yourself, Markus." Leo pats him on the shoulder and gives him one more smile before making his leave.

Markus wipes the tears and takes one last look at the painting. A huge white field, with intertwining swaths of purple and green and red and yellow running through it, sweeping upward diagonally until it vanishes off the edge of the canvas. He's been asked what he thought it meant, by dozens of outlets. Each time, he's deflected it back to the android issue of the day or told people to come up with their own interpretations, because Markus just doesn't know what to make of it.

It's the beginning of a piece, he knows that much. Just the beginning, and the work on it will never end.

"I think I'll paint a family portrait for Ana Sofia's birthday present," Markus says quietly. "You'll be in it Carl, because you helped raise her, even just for a little while."

No reply. But Markus smiles and puts his hat and sunglasses back on. He stands, and walks out of the gallery, out of the Met, back to his friends.

There is still so much work to do. 

 


End file.
